Hidden Beneath
by Pikatard
Summary: "Snow and ice isn't the best environment as a resting place. How long did Soundwave slumber in the frozen land and what are the creatures that woke him up? If only answers were as easy to get as it was to upset the feisty one who was their leader." An improvised roleplaying game became a full story. Mild violence.


A/N: This is basically an improvised RP that started from a silly idea of a random crossover and ended up as something a lot bigger than either of us expected.

I wrote Soundwave (italics), my RP partner PhazonFlood [phazonflood. deviantart. com] wrote Grievous (normal font).

Enjoy! I sure as heck had fun writing. (And waiting impatiently what I'd get as a reply!)

* * *

The General sheathed his sabers and laughed. Cocky, cold and metallic, it rung through the halls of the ship as he stood before the charred body of a defeated assassin. "Your tactics are pathetic, Jedi. Did you really expect to come out of this victorious?" Of course, his taunting was merely for his own sadistic pleasure; his enemy was dead. "Clean that up," he ordered. The Droids standing by rushed to obey. Grievous walked from the ship's deck and out onto the planet below, swinging his cape back over his shoulder. It was direly cold here, and his stay would no doubt be unpleasant. He made his way to the temporary base that had been assembled, wary to any threats that would be watching from the snow.

"Search the area for any more of these pathetic rogues," Grievous ordered. His Droids obeyed. They fanned out in groups and covered the area in moments, making a thorough survey. If any non-Separatist being was waiting out there, they would be destroyed. One group of Droids happened upon such a being. The one in lead raised his weapon and called out. "Halt! State your business here!" The rest of the Droids followed suit and raised their weapons, ready to deal with the colossal threat.

_The cold wind had been playing around with the snow for a long time. So long that Soundwave had forgotten how he had gotten where he was and when. The movements around his resting spot had activated Laserbeak, and with that it had given him a signal to boot up, literally. Now he was watching the army pointing weapons at him while he was resting himself on his arms and almost fully covered in ice and snow. A quick scan of the area didn't give any information other than the temperature was warmer than when he had arrived. Without further notice, he ignored the small drones and tried to lift himself up, ice cracking on top of his legs._

The Droids stepped back a bit in reaction to the titan's movement. It was enormous; they were scared. But they did not abandon their mission. "I said stay still!" the leader called out in anger, he fired a warning shot directly into the thing's head.

_The shot landed on Soundwave's forehead, giving out sparklets of fire from friction. More than that it had no effect on him, but he stopped and turned his head down towards the one who shot. All he could assume, was that something had happened to human civilization while he was slumbering. A little bit of curiosity woke up in him and he moved, yet again against the orders that apparently had been given to him, as he lifted himself up to his total height, outmatching everything around him heightwise._

Seeing the thing adamantly refuse to submit, the Droid leader gave the order to open fire. The small battalion gave it everything they had, firing every assortment of laser weapon at the beast, hoping to do at least some damage. The Droid leader gave out a frantic call for help. "General! We've discovered some sort of Droid out here, at least 30 meters tall!" he cried.

"It is not of Separatist origin?" Grievous asked calmly.

"No sir, affiliation unknown!"

Without a lapse in the decision, he gave the order, "Then destroy it, at least attempt to." The General laughed, knowing his soldiers would probably fall in the face of this threat. Confident that they would not be able to deal with it, he headed towards them, sabers drawn, giving the titanic mechanoid a quizzical glare through his mask.

_As expected, the weapons did little damage, but with as massive amounts as Soundwave was getting, it would do no good eventually. With a quick glance around he spotted a few vehicles of sorts, and with a couple of steps he was at them, lifting them up with ease. He didn't want to risk his conduits to be damaged since he didn't know if there were any other Cybertronians around here or anywhere to fix him, so instead of tossing the vehicles at his attackers, he used them as two huge shields._

Grievous laughed at the mundanity of the situation. The titan didn't even return his Droids' attacks; it merely picked up two of them to use as shields. Bemused, he raised his hand in a halting order, clearly the Droids' weapons would do no damage upon this creature. They were as pinpricks to it, and Grievous decided his own weapons would do a better job. No metal could resist the dematerializing power of a light saber. Grievous approached the thing fearlessly, lashing out with a single saber aimed straight at its leg.

_The heat signatures from the approaching creature's weapons were popping up different alerts on Soundwave's visor. That could only mean bad, and without hesitation, knowing his sudden movements would damage other areas of his still half-frozen body, he dodged the saber quickly, going backwards in the snow. The masses of snow hindered him and added with the ice still stuck in his leg joints, he had to drop the two vehicles to keep balance._

The General smiled beneath his faceplate. He looked at the retreating titan cockily, "Ah, metal one, you don't mix well with saber fire, do you?" He asked, swinging them delicately over and around his head in a show of skill.

Confident in the decision to fight first and ask questions later, he reared up for another attack, aiming to slash the offender off his feet, quite literally. Grievous lunged at a metallic foot that could easily crush him, were he an easy target. Sabers primed, wheeling around in his claws, he was relentless.

_The small creature's words were true, more than what Soundwave would like to admit. Time was now his enemy, as he needed the ice to be gone from his body faster than at the rate it was currently melting and cracking. Sinking further into the snow and ice, he barely managed to dodge the next attacks towards his feet, one saber managing to touch the surface of his right foot's tip. The cut was enough to spill small droplets of energon although it was just a scratch. His mind was going through calculations to get out of the situation, but each of them ended up one way or another with an answer that he'd lose a limb or two in the best case without any verbal confrontations. The final trigger for him to do more than dodging, was his left leg's upper joint cracking bad due to Soundwave's forced movements. One iceblock had gone between the seams, and he felt a spike of pain going up from his leg all the way through his spine. His visor flickered the same time a metallic, cold and monotonous voice came from him. "Desist."_

Grievous stopped in his tracks. He smiled a faceless smile at the sight of the creature's blood dripping on the ground. Clearly, it was at his mercy, or so he thought.

"Desist?" The general mocked him. "Do I take that as a surrender?"

_There was no reason for Soundwave to fight without a cause, and since the saber-wielding character had ceased its attack, he calculated calmly that what ever it wanted, surrender was the optimal solution. If the situation required, he'd be more ready against the blades next time. Soundwave nodded slightly, keeping himself still and quiet in the middle of the cold and icy field of white, observing the surroundings and the creatures in front of him._

"Good," Grievous answered, his heavy Kaleeshan accent annunciating the final letter of the word. "Bind it, and take it back to the base."

The Droids responded obediently, throwing huge metal cables over the mechanical titan.

Grievous had never encountered a Droid like this before, and he was eager to uncover what secrets it might be hiding. Perhaps he could use it to improve his own robotic army.

_Soundwave released warm air through his vents, hissing, which formed small streams of mist around him. The cables were thick and hindered his movements, but not too much as he was still able to walk. Playing helpless had its advantages, if the situation became more difficult he'd put up a proper rampage, but Soundwave didn't have much room for error until he'd figure a way to disable the sabers. Putting up a show for being tied up, it still felt wrong being caught by a lot smaller beings. He glanced at the leading creature and felt himself being dragged around ruthlessly. The communications officer tried all frequencies known to him to try and contact now anyone of his kind. The Nemesis wasn't responding, nor was any other of the ship's crew, nor Megatron, and apparently Autobots weren't anywhere near either. Where was this place?_

Grievous led his prisoner back to camp. The titan was far too large to fit into any of the Droid accommodations, so he was merely left tied up in the snow. "Sit down," one of the Droids rang, derisively. The titan's escort attempted to pull him down to his knees.

Grievous approached him, and though he had full intentions of dismantling him after he was through interrogating, he feigned respect. He placed a clenchful talon in the snow directly in front of the titan's foot and narrowed his gaze.

"Where did you come from?" The general pried. "What is your purpose here? Rigged to detonate? Carrying troops directly into the heart of our camp?" he looked the creature up and down, considering what malevolent purpose it might be here to serve upon him and his army. It was certainly big enough to do some damage, but by all appearances, it hardly seemed battle-savvy.

_Not having too many options to keep up with the act, he knelt down, the impact of his other knee hitting the ground purposely almost crushing the ordering drone. It created huge snow clouds around him. The leader had many questions and only the first one he had answers for. For a moment Soundwave was quiet, until his visor flickered to life again, showing quick scenes of Earth in its 21th century, with a male human's voice recording._

_"If anybody's out there and they find this signal, they at least know that... there must be a planet with some pretty clever things on it." _

_Not exactly how it originally was recorded, but Soundwave found it necessary to alter it a bit. To his own amusement, he had intercepted a radio signal transmission from Earth while on a mission, and apparently a small part of it had become somewhat useful in this situation. Further than the information about him being on Earth at one point he did not intend to share. One of the good sides was that the little walk the whole group had had melted and broke the rest of the ice from his legs._

"Humans? You were built by humans?" Grievous retorted. Save for a few exceptions, he had no respect whatsoever for the species. The images that were shown to him spoke of a far-past and primitive human race, on a planet he had never seen before.

"Built by humans thousands of years before they even achieved proper space flight? Do you expect me to believe that?" He drew a sabre as a threat. He would have the answers he wanted. The thing was trying to lead him on with that inane image sequence. Perhaps at some point it had visited this primitive human world, but Grievous suspected there was far more to the story.

_Soundwave lowered his head towards the aggressor and shook his head slightly, agreeing with the conclusion, but also because of the answer he got about his own situation. He realized that he had been slumbering in the ice for far longer than he should have. The only memory he had from before his awakening was just a hazy pile of images of a huge battle where someone a lot bigger than him gotten the best of him with some kind of a stasis blaster. What had happened to the Decepticons? To Megatron? Optimus Prime? The battle had left earth due to circumstances still not clear to him. Had they crashed on a planet with Nemesis? Did anyone else survive? Too many questions, and possibly no one to answer them._

_A frustrated vent got out of him again as he returned his thoughts to the current situation, staring down, as he didn't have the solution yet to counter the small weapon in the other one's hand. No matter the way to approach, it would mean he'd lose a limb or two, or even more. Maybe the only solution was to run, to fly away before they would realize what had happened. All that would depend on how aggressive the other one would get with the given answers... and for a moment Soundwave thought the creature's behavior was awfully familiar._

_The visor became alive again, as he needed more answer before he'd literally fly away. This time Soundwave decided to show a conflict between their kind, between the two factions, and only them. No humans, no Earth, just metal everywhere on his homeworld. Soon after the image swapped to a star map, which had a cursor trying to locate the current place, but unable to match it to a star system._

"An entire planet of Droids?" Grievous inquired rhetorically. The images the titan had shown to him were surprising indeed; these were no typical mechanoids. Nearly every one of his kind seemed to be constructed with individual purpose, nothing like the single-model conformity of Droid armies such as his. Moreover, they seemed to be fighting independently of a master. Were they not Droids, but rather cyborgs? Individual, biologically-based beings that augmented themselves into these monstrous weapons? Or perhaps they were something else entirely.

The titan had exposed his visored face to Grievous, seeming to inquire him. The general looked the star map over carefully. "Lost, are you? How sad," he chuckled. "And here I was beginning to gain a sense of respect for your intellect."

He traced a constellation with an outstretched finger, trying to find something he recognized. "Yes, here," he responded, tapping the titan's visor roughly. "In orbit around this star, Thuban. Perhaps you know it, it was known even in early human days," he narrowed his gaze, "by humans, at least, now how far along was _your_ stellar science back then?" More short laughter. "Now that you know where you are, perhaps you can tell me where your home planet is. I think I would like to see more of your kind," he demanded. The general's mind flooded with greed, thinking of all the war-turning possibilities this discovery could lead to.

_The moment his inquiry was answered, the visor flickered off. He didn't have any reason to further this conversation and listen to the smaller one's endless ramblings and questions. If he had the need to come back here, he would. How long had it been since he had walked on his home world? Had it yet recovered, or was everyone gone and the planet still a wasteland? That he had to find out himself, and as he had tried to contact others, while the robot in front of him had pointed the system he was on, one of the space bridges had received his signal and pinged back. This one had been apparently hidden well if it was still functioning, or it was being commonly used by who knew who. The known stellar map of his had been quickly snatched off the Nemesis' databanks before he had gone into his stasis, and it didn't take him long now to calculate the needed route for him to reach his destination. How long it would take was a totally different story._

_The time to play a little bit less helpless had come. _

_The ice and snow hadn't had time to take over his body again, and Soundwave stood up spreading his arms, and the heavy, thick wires around him snapped clean like they were threads of cloth. Of course he had to use more force than necessary, to make the appearance look intimidating. What he expected from it was a fullscale attack to keep him from escaping, and in the worst case, to offline him permanently and he had calculated most possible outcomes against this saber wielder. As it always is, the environment was either his ally or his worst enemy. He'd see which side the nature would take, since the moment the wires were falling off of him, he pulled his other arm down, smashing ice and snow everywhere in front of him, especially right at his biggest small threat in front of him, creating dusty clouds of snow. _

Grievous growled; he had been duped. The titan had feigned helplessness when in actuality, it could escape at any time.

Clearly it had no desire in staying and furthering the general's interest.

"You dare to trick me?" General Grievous roared. He thought for a moment to draw his light sabers and dismantle the titan right there and then. But, if it would not lead him to the rest of its kind, he would have to make do with the one specimen he had. He wanted to preserve the complex creature, destroying it would only hide its technological secrets from him. Instead, he drew an electrostaff. It flashed on, tainting the snow with a lavender hue. Titanic or not, anything mechanical would surely take a hit from this weapon.

Thinking quickly, Grievous looked his escaping enemy over. He noted a luminescent, violet core directly in the center of its chest. That, he thought, must be the right place to strike.

Grievous flung his cape off, exposing his full cybernetic body to the cold. He fired his powerful hocked legs and clawed his way up to the titan's chest. He reared up, his staff primed and brimming with electrical menace. He took aim to ram it straight into the creature's heart.

_Everything happened too fast for Soundwave's liking in the freezing weather. His calculations had failed with the unknown enemy being a lot more agile and persistent for its size and the cape had done well in hiding necessary details from him. He saw, and felt, the thing climbing on him faster than he could react with his arms to grab and toss the invader away. It was too late._

_Soundwave felt the stab and although it wasn't enough to penetrate all the way through his dark blue colored protoform, it sure as the Pit gave an unpleasant shock through his body. Staggering forward a little, visor flashing him warnings about literally everything, Soundwave let out a static screech. Both of his arms tried to keep him in balance, but eventually he had to kneel down, landing his arms down into the ground, back to the icy field, to prevent himself for falling over. The shock had unstabilized his senses, barely being able to see, and it struck hardest to his equilibrium sensors._

_This wasn't good. At all..._

Grievous wheeled around to the creature's back, ramming the staff once more into an exposed seam. He noticed that, though armored and durable, the thing's shell was full of openings, a softer, luminescent mass below it that seemed to be its weakness. Grievous intended to exploit that weakness.

"You will learn not to cross the Knight-slayer, Titan," he spat, driving his staff once more into a bright, violet vein.

Uncaring to the damage he was causing, how many precious circuits he was overloading with electricity, his violent mind was set on task and focused. So long as the structure and circuitry of the beast was intact, he cared not what happened to it.

_Warnings flickering, Soundwave couldn't do much to prevent the finishing blow from landing sharply into his neck. The shock was too much for his systems to handle. Cursing his situation, cursing himself for failing so miserably and letting himself be caught by a lot smaller creatures than himself. If Megatron was still alive, and if Soundwave survived what ever was coming at him, he would let no one know to the last breath of his spark. But that was the least of his worries when his optic sensors shut down, leaving him in darkness with only his audio receptors working. And soon after he fell limp down to the snow, but still conscious, trying to move, but failing._

The electrostaff fizzled offline- Grievous did not need it anymore. He smiled that queer, sadistic smile with his eyes alone, laughing at his fallen foe. He walked triumphantly onto its chest, digging a talon into that sensitive glowing core at its center. He dug at it, aiming to cause pain as he taunted. "If only you'd assumed that position in the first place," he growled. "It would have saved you the suffering."

He waited for a voice to answer him- nothing came. He was a bit peeved at the thing's tendency to show rather than speak, it made the whole interaction so much less personal. Grievous liked to hear a voice; a sentient identity, cry out in anguish when he brought it pain. He also relished in the feeling he got when gazing into his victim's eyes. He so loved to observe that feeling, that feeling their eyes reflected when they looked into his. A pain and fear that etched onto their face when they looked into the eyes of a superior foe, hoping, subconsciously, to inspire mercy or guilt. Grievous loved it, and he loved most of all to stomp out that hope with the cold slash of a saber.

The Titan had given him no such pleasure. Its defeat felt empty to him, he realized, without that fearful final expression. The thing was faceless, voiceless- could it even truly be sentient? The General was now more curious than ever about the thing, and not merely because he thought it could benefit him.

"I will take you apart, piece by piece. I will learn what you are, what makes you _tick_ beneath that armor," he said, drawing out a saber. The titan's chest reflected that eerie blue as Grievous approached its faceless head. Delicately so as not to destroy anything unintended, he drew the saber upon the thing's visor, drawing a neat line down the centre, listening for that satisfying clink as it split in two.

_The feeling of dizzyness was overwhelming and no matter how he tried to run diagnostics, nothing responded to him as it should. Instead all Soundwave got was some static noises here and there with a few clicks and other random sounds. Laserbeak had been unresponsive since his awakening, and even his conduits weren't under his command anymore. Nothing was. Unless one can call a small twitch of a finger something controlled. The ice under him had started to spread the coldness on him to a point it started to hurt. A shudder shot through his limbs as he felt the stab on his upper chest, and as it broke the metallic skin, small droplets of bright blue liquid started to surface out of the cut._

_He felt the footsteps on his chest going up, dangerously close to his head and all Soundwave could do, was try and turn his head away, for nothing, as he didn't move at all. Helplessly, in anxiety and anticipation for something brutal to come according to the threats he was getting, he waited, and he didn't have long to wait. _

_Soundwave felt every movement of the blade on his visor, and the heat was more than uncomfortable against his faceplates just under the saber's cutting edge. It was too late for him to try remove the visor himself, as he couldn't move and even if he was asked, he would have refused. As the visor was cut in two, the two halves first didn't move anywhere. With an automated ejection due to damage control protocols, the pieces clicked, although with screechy noises, and moved to the sides, eventually falling off to the snow below. _

_What was under the visor had not been seen by many. The dark metallic face was similar to a humanoid's, lacking most features except eyes and a mouth. Soundwave winced as the brightness of the atmosphere, the snow, and other lights of the area were forced upon his hazy blue optics so suddenly. Between his thin mouthline, steam was evaporating into the frozen temperature at a steady pace. He tried to look at the small creature on top of his chest, but without the aid of his visor, it was no use. All he could register around him was blurry, single-colored shapes. Since Soundwave was so used to having his mask, he hadn't learned to keep his expressions under control, and without being able to do anything, he reflected anxiety and something one might call fear on his faceplates._

The general stopped, withdrawing his saber as the dismantled visor fell from the face of his prisoner. He gazed triumphantly at what was revealed, at long last knowing the face of his victim. He locked a slitted, yellow, merciless gaze into those pitiful blue orbs. The expression in those clouded eyes was unmistakable, no matter the species. Fear. Grievous smiled, he laughed, "So this is the face of the Titan? Hardly impressive."

Grievous did not have long to relish in his moment of victory; that satisfying, dominating staredown. The eyes darted away from him in subtle movements, pupils retracting and struggling to focus on anything around them, and yet seeming to fail. With contempt, Grievous realized the unmasked creature was blind.

What surprised him most was that the the thing even possessed such a face. There was no purpose in a constructed being to have a face capable of expressing emotion, Grievous himself was a testament to that. What fool would build such a colossal Droid that could feel fear in the face of battle? He was now more certain than ever, the titan was no Droid. Though mechanical, it was alive, and fully sentient. The innate complexity of those optics, though non-functioning, was equal to that, if not more so, of any organic lifeform. No race had thus far been able to mimic that complexity in a constructed being.

He masked his disappointment with a derisive, cocky laugh. He picked up a fragment of the shaded black glass that had once been the creature's eyes, and turned it over in his hand. From all appearances before, it had been merely a simple sheath, but Grievous could see it was far more. An intricate array of wires ran through the fine space between its rims, and it was clear now that it was completely opaque.

Thoroughly fascinated, he was ever the more eager to vivisect. "Can you no longer see the face of your victor? How ironic," he rasped, laughing at it. He waved the saber tauntingly before the titan's empty eyes.

_Soundwave blinked his optics each time the saber went over them. He knew exactly what the bright moving light was, and yet he couldn't help his reflexes getting the better of him. Wincing a little again, his expression changed to that of pain more than anything else. The aftershock was going through him, tickling, cracking, sending mixed signals from everywhere in his body as more warm metal was rapidly cooling down. One of the sensor net complexes was able to reboot itself and Soundwave knew the rest of his senses had started to online one by one, slowly. _

_"... desist..." Soundwave said quietly, almost like a plea, although he had tried to sound less pathetic in this situation. His voice wasn't blocked by his visor now, and the metallic echo wasn't as cold and monotonous as when he had first time said the word. He was calculating his options again, now with his visor literally in two pieces, he'd have a hard time navigating anywhere without guidance. He was disappointed in himself for having underestimated his opponent so badly. If he had taken proper precautions like he always did, he could have been traveling towards his homeworld already. He wanted to blame the slumber, the cold, the small robot army for his failure, but he knew better than that. He himself was the only thing he could put blame on. Soundwave let out a frustrated hiss through his vents and tried to move. More systems popped online, and he managed to roll onto his side, not caring what would happen to the creature on top of him, nor around. Partly he wished it would fall down and be crushed under his body with the rest of them. All he knew was that he had to get out of this place, quickly._

"Pathetic," the general rang. He laughed. He leapt off his perch above the titan's face and landed in the snow. "Try to escape if you will," he cooed. "But I wonder how far you will get," he continued, flinging away the visor portion that had been in his hand, "Without your vision."

Grievous was taking a certain sadistic pleasure in seeing the titan blinded, and yet he was in part disappointed that the thing hardly offered a threat- physical or otherwise. How dreadfully boring it was to fight a thing that never fought back, but merely offered sickeningly pacifistic defense.

Selfish disappointment aside, Grievous stayed on task. Perhaps he could turn this to his advantage. "There may be a way to restore your eyes, Titan," he offered. "But I think you know what I want in return."

_Struggling more to move, Soundwave sank his fingertips into the ice to pull himself up properly to rest on his straightened arms. He managed it better now, although his balance still felt spinning. A few more reboots and the spinning finally stopped, making him able to stand up. He looked around, trying to find key points in the scenery to get a better grasp of his surroundings without getting hurt more than he already was. _

_He listened quietly as he was given an "offer". First it destroyed his sight, then offered to fix it for a price. How convenient to them. Soundwave knew he had no way to survive out here alone, and with that line of thought, the composure that he had managed to gather up started to crumble again. He was so angry at himself for so many reasons that he felt he might snap, but he held himself together. That wouldn't do any good either. His apparent choices were to try and escape and be desperate about it, end up dead somewhere in the iceland, or be a test subject and possibly die on a laboratory table by the hands of this lunatic saber wielder. What pleasant options..._

_Soundwave turned towards the voice that just a while ago had threatened to kill him on the spot and nodded slightly. He was tired of the game already._

"Good," Grievous replied coldly. He sheathed his saber. Once more he was confident, secured in his victory. It was a pleasant feeling.

Grievous, of course, didn't have any intention of giving the titan its sight back. But what could it do? It was helpless, and it would take any hope it could get. Grievous was conniving, manipulative; he would take what he wanted.

What he wanted from it was to know how to replicate it. Any advanced technology that fell into the hands of the factions within this war would bring a great advantage.

The general paused for a moment, considering the next course of action. He paced, circling the titan as he eyed it greedily. _What will I do now?_ he wondered, still pacing. _Dismantle it? Force it to tell me the location of the others like it? Have its eyes repaired and send it on its way?_ Grievous laughed out loud at the last thought, kidding himself with a jested sense of mercy.

He paused for a moment, as something caught his eye. Grievous knelt down in the snow, observing a small, luminous pool of liquid. The radiant blue liquid melted the ice around it, turning it straight to vapor in a constant flow. It was the spilled life-blood of the titan- a fuel he had never encountered before. Once more, the general's mind filled with curiosity.

He slipped a finger into the pool and then rose from the ground. "What is this substance?" he demanded, turning to the titan from whom it had come. To his surprise, the fluid reacted to his contact.

It moved seemingly with a will of its own, seeping into the seams of his armor, into his own blood and biocircuitry. The general cried out in anger and pain. It burned, and he could feel that fiery sensation pulsing through his body.

He clutched his head in his claws as it hit his brain. "What _is_ it?" he repeated his question.

Almost as quickly as the pain had come, it ebbed. Grievous felt a strange energy fill him. His heart beat faster, spreading that invigorating, burning sensation to every mechanical extremity. The alien liquid within him gave his cybernetic body a feeling of strength and power he had never felt before; a perfect fuel. Despite the tiny amount, the seams of his armor emitted a faint blue glow, not unlike the violet one from the titan.

His mind reeling with the steroidal effects of the liquid, Grievous did not think to consider the detrimental effects it might have on his biology.

"Intriguing," he rasped, lowering his hands and observing then. He clenched a fist with unintended strength. It cracked his armored palm but Grievous felt nothing of it. Filled with power, greed, and new purpose, the General turned back to the titan. "You will tell me how to procure more of this energy source. Or, I will take it from you."

_Before Soundwave could even consider what to answer, he felt and heard what was happening to the curious creature. The certain energy signatures that it emanated felt awfully familiar, yet so distant and alien. It all reminded him about the early stages of MECH's experiment with his kind, and the end results weren't very pleasing to say the least. What might happen with such a greed was never anything good. Soundwave took a few steps back, away from the voice that had a much more sinister sound to it than earlier. Did energon change the whole being that much with such a small amount? And now that it wanted more no matter what, the death out there in the whiteness, alone, started to sound like a better option to tolerate, as energon calculations and other scientific matter weren't his speciality. _

_He quickly ran a few diagnostics to check that everything in him, outside of his vision, worked. Laserbeak sent a positive feedback, same with rest of his body. The time he had spent in stasis might have some side-effects still, but he simply had to try and escape. He had somehow agreed to be studied upon, not be drained of his lifeblood to be used as a drug to others._

_If the small one wanted him that bad, he would have to do better than talk and threaten, despite the fact that he could be easily injured with the sabers. Soundwave's faceplates didn't fail to express the fear he felt from the whole idea and with a few more steps backwards, he cleared himself enough space to do what was necessary. Shaking his head, disagreeing with the idea, he quickly jumped into the air with a backflip, seams cracking and metal shifting around him. In an instant he had transformed from his robot form to a slim, winged jet. Before anyone could possibly realize what had just happened, he accelerated and gained altitude faster than he had ever had a need for. Soundwave simply wanted to get out of there, and flying blind wasn't a bad idea considering that he still had an operational navigation system. He just had to be on his highest alert to try and avoid any collisions with other flying objects using his transmission sequences reflecting back to him, like a damned bat._

"Oh, now that _is_ interesting!" Grievous shouted gleefully. The surprises this creature held, they had no end!

He was no longer so much angered by the titan's refusal to obey him, rather, he was enthralled. The thrill of a hunt seemed exquisitely appealing to the General's power-mad brain.

He made a swath through the pool of the titan's blood, feeling the burning blue liquid seep into his digits and into his blood, giving him invigorating strength.

He roared, rapturous. A low, sinister, metallic, and triumphant rumble that retched its way from his throat; it was enough to make even his own troops stagger backward in fear. Grievous trudged forward, heading towards the vehicle bay. One Droid made the mistake of standing too close to his path, and Grievous promptly drew a saber and hacked him in half. He said nothing, not even a taunt. His expression was fixed into one of ecstatic anger, and anyone who got in or near his way would feel the brunt of it.

The General had any number of sophisticated aircraft at his disposal. Most were made to accommodate huge troupes of soldiers. But no, Grievous wanted something small, something lithe and maneuverable, like him. Something personal, that he, alone, could use to tear that deceptive demon from the sky.

"Ah," he rasped to himself. "This will do." He happened upon the smallest device in there. Built to connect and integrate and give the gift of flight to its mechanical user. Delusively small in appearance, the metal armor system wrapped around the general once he attached it. It latched onto his back, sending connective wires through the neural net of his spine. It was now, if only temporarily, a part of him. It sheathed his skull and chest in additional armor, offering protection from the collapsing power of high altitude. Long mobile wings extended from its sides, and its rockets flared on with a mental command from the General. He shot off into the sky.

The transforming titan was in his sights. For all its supposed complexity, the craft it had morphed into was quite primitive, by all appearances. Grievous drew a light saber in midair, now with a decisively murderous intent. Blinded with that surge of power and energy the alien fuel had given him, he no longer cared about interrogating or learning of the thing's inner workings and origins. No, he wanted more of its blood. At that point, it was all he was driven by. Perhaps he did not even need to know where to find more. Considering the size of the beast, and the miniscule amount Grievous had received relative to its effects, he may only just need to down this one titan. It would make him unstoppable, and if he could give that same blood to his entire army... the General laughed insanely at the thought.

It would give him the power to decimate his enemies, and bring this war to an end.

He sped up, chilling wind biting down his armor. Sabers aimed, he prepared to strike.

_It didn't take long for Soundwave to notice his pursuer, but without proper sight, it was difficult to know exactly what was happening. Apparently his own form of flight wasn't fast enough compared to the flight tech of the others. The creeping feeling of no matter what he did, he would be caught didn't help him to focus on the closing threat. Dispatching Laserbeak to attack was a risky plan, and without it lying on his chest, he'd be even more vulnerable. The situation started to cause a headache since Soundwave constantly had to concentrate on sending echoing transmissions to his surroundings to be able to navigate without sight. If he lost Laserbeak, it would be even more difficult for him to get to his destination unharmed, but the closer the pursuer got, the more he realized that working senses were necessary, which made him detach his surveillance drone. Soundwave could manage..._

_Laserbeak quickly took air under its wings and flew up, looping and sneaking behind Soundwave's pursuer, keeping its distance just out of harm's way. As they both were in position, Soundwave opened a direct link to his drone to work as his optics and audios temporarily. It was a task easier said than done to have sight literally on one's own back to be able to dodge attacks aimed at him. He didn't have long to prepare as he could sense the first strike coming._

Grievous swiveled his gaze to meet the strange drone that had just detached from his prey. He growled, swinging a saber in its direction but missing, watching it drift behind him.

"Coward!" he sneered. Never before had he faced such a foe so adamantly opposed to meeting him in combat. Or, rather, many before him had tried to flee, but in the end were forced to confront him. The titan, however, had a very innovative way of escaping. But the general would not allow him to succeed.

It peeved Grievous that the titan had sent out his pitiful little servant to face him. Though it was still much larger than him, and he was certain that it too had fuel to siphon and take, he kept his eyes trained on the true prize. He neared his prey, a single saber primed and ready. He now flew adjacent, nearing in for a strike. In his free hand, he reached out and latched on to one of the titan's wings, all six, adrenaline-pumped fingers digging into the metal. Once secured, he reared up his saber and brought it down with force, straight in the center of the wing.

_The apparent flaw in Soundwave's plan was a proper distance between him and his foe. Laserbeak wasn't able to measure that distance properly in a situation like this. The instant he felt the invader's hand on his wing, he changed his flight direction to the right, in hopes to get rid of the grip. The stream his drone was sending him alarmed him of the danger, and he commanded it to shoot until it shot down the alien robot._

Grievous hissed as he was met with a barrage of laser fire. Distracted, he was unable to land the hit where he intended, and instead veered off to the left, driving his saber through the tip of the wing.

Grievous growled. He turned to see the drone following his movements, hitting him with ceaseless rounds of fire. His armor took damage but remained uncompromised.

They were surprisingly accurate shots, considering Grievous' proximity to the titan. Would he not be afraid to hit himself? Thinking on that possibility, he wove his way to the underside of the ship, making his way to the front, where he would be a more difficult target. He hoped that his sudden movements would somewhat disable the accuracy of the drone fire. As he moved, he dragged his saber through the hull of the titan's vehicular form.

_The flying drone behind them both did not cease firing and it had no reason to. Soundwave knew where each of the shots was aimed at, so that was the least of his worries, although it did limit his movements in the air. The current sight was difficult to comprehend from Laserbeak's point of view, and as it shifted more to their left, it was more clear what was happening and in a nick of time Soundwave was able to dodge most of the saber's blade, although it did pierce through the side plates, splashing energon out of the cut like a rain of blue fire. A few alarms started to flash and he even took a few hits from Laserbeak to be able to maneuver himself away. This wasn't good as the energon kept leaking out. _

Grievous snarled as his unintentional hit along the underside of the titan spilled massive amounts of fuel. Though they were relatively miniscule to their original owner, the general was angered that he had allowed any amount to be wasted. It dissipated into the clouds, falling in scattered droplets to the snow-covered wastes below.

Grievous was now clenched onto the titan's underside, talons digging into its metallic skin. His flight rockets had stopped firing, and he now tried to think of a tactic that could force the titan to land without causing any more fuel loss.

He did not have long to think when a shift in the wind caused a slimy mass of blue blood to pour on his face. No matter the substance, the impact was unpleasant. It stung his eyes brutally, and Grievous moved frantically to wipe it from his face.

The blue glow of his circuits intensified as the newly introduced fuel seeped through his faceplates and into his system. As expected, Grievous felt a new rush of energy wrack through him, but that feeling of glee was short-lived. The titan's blood, while invigorating to his cyborg half, seemed to be eating away at his biological half. Grievous had hardly acknowledged the gnawing, flaming pain felt by his natural body; he had been too distracted with the power it had given his mechanical half.

That last blast of fuel in his veins merely intensified the pain, and Grievous could no longer ignore it. His anger and power-driven hubris evaporated almost immediately. He screamed, a cold, metallic screech like nails on steel. He dug his claws deeper into the ship in desperate anguish, talons stabbing into the titan, cutting and slicing. Grievous closed his eyes, they still burned with the toxic blast of the alien blood, and he could feel the same effects taking place throughout his body. He needed to expel the substance, somehow. It was slowly but surely destroying him.

_Had the creature gone mad? His wings clicked fast back and forth once along his transformation seams due to reflexes trying to ease the spiked pain from the attacks. The scream hurt his audio receptors and concentrating on his environment became even harder. Soundwave didn't know what it wanted from him anymore, since attacking him like that would surely make them crash and end both of their lives. Laserbeak had ceased fire automatically after hitting its master and didn't resume as it should have. A possible system failure due to the stasis and now that Soundwave didn't have coverfire to distract the crazy alien, he did his best to shake off the maniac and stop it from clawing more dents and bleeding cuts to his armor. After a few sharp turns in the air the thing was still clinging tight to him, leaving only a few options left for Soundwave. He had lost enough energon and his energy levels started to be on the lower side, which made him decide to pull a desperate stunt. _

_Soundwave didn't have time to calculate how it would end, but in the air, he transformed back to his bipedal mode, not caring if a few pieces of the smaller armor would be ripped off of him against all the wind pressure at that speed. Since the shapeshifting was so complicated, he thought the other one would simply have to let go or be crushed between his mass. _

Grievous saw that the titan was changing back into its original form. As if he was not nauseated enough already, the transformation swung him violently off to the side. He lost his grip on his saber, and it fell upwards into the sky. His talons were ripped out of the metal by the sudden realignment of the titan's armor, but he managed to keep one clawed hand clamped tightly on.

The pair tumbled out of the sky, the general clung on desperately. His mind still reeling from pain, he could not find the focus to control his flight suit and fly away. He was angry, disgusted; the strength and power he had felt only moments before had given way so quickly to pain and lethargy.

He opened his eyes. His vision was blurred and disoriented, but he could see the situation clearly. Wind ripped through his face, and the snow-covered ground was nearing ever closer.

He could feel his body burning from the poison, and felt the reflex to disgorge it. A painful wheeze escaped him, and a vile green-and-blue liquid leaked from his mask- a mix of his blood and that of the titan's. But there was nothing his body could do to expel it, not without aid. It was in his blood, his heart and brain.

In a last, vengeful move, Grievous drew his staff and activated it. It flashed on, trailing sparks and electricity through the whipping wind. The general could see one of the wounds he had inflicted with his saber while the beast was still in its vehicular mode. It had changed positions, but it was still close, and leaking fuel. The general wondered how the glowing blue liquid would react to contact with an electrostaff. With painful effort, fueled more by hatred than anything else, he rammed his staff into the wound and left it stuck there. He finally lost his grip on the titan and fell away from it.

Grievous tried to garner focus and fly, but it was no use. He wheezed again, energy seeming to escape him as air rattled out of his lungs along with his poisoned blood. He continued to fall in an inevitable reunion with the ground. One more painful wheeze, and he slipped into unconsciousness.

_Soundwave noticed it wasn't enough to get rid of the other and he tried to grab the hazy shape with his bare hands. Before he could clasp his digits around it, he saw the bright and painfully familiar light flicker into life, only to get it shoved right into his upper left torso. Primus, why did it have to hurt so much? His head filled with static as the shock went through his body like a lightning strike from a clear sky. He would have screamed in pain, but this time the blue mech didn't feel only the stunning effect, he felt like his innards were burning and driving all of his systems into a forced shutdown, including all his senses. He glanced at Laserbeak who was still functional and following, but wasn't able to send it any commands. If he ever survived this, he'd better start learning the skill of communicating with others verbally... All Soundwave hoped for was that the ground wasn't too far away before his consciousness fell into a stasis lock and his limp body crashed into the flat and fluffy snow, leaving behind a crater and huge white, snowflaky cloud._

The general's loyal troops had been trailing behind the aerial fight, standing by for backup despite not being given orders. They had kept out of the fight, knowing their general's preference, and capabilities, for finishing battles alone.

But clearly this time he had failed. They watched from a distance as he fell, seemingly unconscious. His much-larger opponent collided with the ground, but Grievous still had a few moments before he would impact.

The Droid in command gave a quick order, sending out two drones to catch Grievous before it was too late. The flighted Droids moved swiftly, circling around and meeting the general's falling speed before moving under and decelerating, pushing upwards to match the force of gravity.

By the time he reached the ground, the speed was hardly lethal. The Droids took most of the impact. They landed hardly a few meters from the titan, who, too, appeared to have fallen unconscious.

The troops moved quickly, calling in medic Droids to the site to repair the damage done in the air. They realized he had been poisoned, and despite their efforts, they could not neutralize it. They could only treat the symptoms.

Grievous wheezed as he slowly returned to the waking world, letting loose a hiss and viciously slapping away the prying hand of a medic.

"The titan," he rasped, sitting up and pointing to his fallen foe. "It knows what this is. Tell it," he wheezed once more, "if it supplies an antidote, it can go free." The general was uncertain of the sincerity of that promise, but at this point, he was desperate. He forgot his anger, his tactics, and his greed, all, if only for a moment, replaced by a desperate will to live. He fell back down and went limp, allowing the medics to continue their work.

A small group of Droids left to do his bidding. They approached the titan, throwing cables over its fallen form, this time ones charged with electricity. They would let loose a vicious voltage if the Droids sensed their captor trying to escape. They waited for it to emerge from stasis, to begin the interrogation.

_Laserbeak was circling above its master, observing the situation and trying to send a distress signal to him. If only it knew what was wrong with Soundwave. There wasn't a stasis lock it couldn't wake its master from, but this time it was different, like something was keeping him locked. Laserbeak could spy small electric zaps going on around him which made the bird chirp in distress even more. Other than that, Soundwave was lying in the snow without moving, without any signs of life, even his luminescent violet patterns were barely visible._

The leading Droid, confident that the sleeping titan was secured, began to approach it. Its eyes were closed, and it did not respond when he raised a weapon to its face. Clearly it was out.

"Wake up, you worthless scrapheap!" The Droid called out. He kicked it square in its colossal face, a loud metal CLANG resounding through the field.

_It was a wrong move from the droid, and it got a laser shower upon its neck from Laserbeak. However, although the kick didn't even leave a dent on his faceplates, it was strong enough for Soundwave's body to swing slightly, snapping the electrostaff clean in two under him, shutting it down with a muffled zap. The cold metal clearly didn't do well with bending. That very moment Laserbeak stopped his attack and ascended quickly, as it was able to receive a response from its master. _

_Soundwave's systems slowly started to reboot. His violet veins started to glow brighter upon his regaining consciousness. He uttered something gibberish and tried to move but his body felt too heavy for that. In all the dizzyness from the staff and energon loss, he opened his light blue optics and felt everything starting to spin, which made him close them fast, letting out a small pained moan. The tingling and aching feeling in his whole body told him that the 'emergency landing' didn't go so bad after all. He was happy that he had all his limbs still attached to him, but as soon as Laserbeak reported the whole situation to him, the feeling was short-lived. His optics opened wide and he tried to see his surroundings, only to understand that the heavy feeling he had felt earlier about his body was because he was tied up, again. _

_So tired of the whole scene, without much energy left, wounded, he let out a loud hiss through his vents and turned his head to look at the familiar silhouette of his oppressor. He stared at it for a while, hesitating and doubting his own thoughts. Without proper repairs he would be stuck on this planet, stuck with these creatures, and yet those same creatures where the only ones he could go to for help. The chuckle that he let escape after realizing the irony in that thought surprised him, and he immediately blamed the fatigue and shook his head. They probably were thinking he had gone crazy or something because of his behavior. Calming himself down without falling into recharge, he turned his head again towards the silhouette._

_"Inquiry: Situation changed. Current objective?" His calm and metallic voice asked. Laserbeak had reported in most that had happened while he was in stasis, and something was different._

The Droid leader shot the titan a confused look. "The thing speaks in riddles!" he screeched, his voice high-pitched and shrill. He twitched his head, looking from side to side, as if questioning the Droids around him. Though the titan was hard to understand, it seemed as though it was asking him what was going on.

The Droid paused for a moment, thinking of what information to divulge.

"You fell," it responded, pointing to the sky, and then to the general."He fell," he continued. "You have poisoned our General, and you will tell us how to cure him!" In reflex, he raised his weapon, as if an 'or else' were implied, but the Droid remembered the offer Grievous had ordered him to make. "Then you may go free," he finished, the benignity of the offer feeling unnatural in his voice.

_He poisoned...? How bold an accusation and again a familiar situation with an offer without options to choose from. No. He had a choice and he'd play his cards properly this time. Soundwave tried to move to lift himself to at least a sitting position, but quickly stopped. The electricity in one of the cables flickered on and off, zapping him a little as a warning by one of the soldiers and it made him slump back down. Fine, this will do for now..._

_For one to have an energon poisoning, especially as some kind of a mixture of a mechanoid and a fleshling, there weren't many options left in a place like this without proper equipment. In fact, no matter who or what had encountered such a fate, he'd have to do the exact same thing. To heal their General, Soundwave knew what he needed to do and it sent a shiver through his body. The whole method was more than disgusting, and yet there wasn't any other way. Carefully thinking how to word it all out, he forced himself out of the informative and monotonous eloquence. _

_"I will cure your General in exchange for me being fully repaired. Both will happen simultaneously." So many words in a row strained Soundwave's voice box and it was easily noticeable even as he did his best to keep his demand simple yet clear. Common speech was always superfluous, making everything long and useless for his information gathering. How many times did he record endless conversations that started randomly, ended randomly and literally had nothing useful in them? Countless times. Oh how he missed his visor._

The Droid turned to the General, looking for an answer. His eyes were closed and he was unconscious once more, surrounded by medics that could do him no good.

The Droid had to think for himself at the titan's ultimatum. The general had been willing to grant it its freedom, and the Droid was certain he would approve of just about anything that would allow him to be cured. If it was in the best interest of the General...

"We accept the conditions," the Droid replied. With Grievous temporarily disabled, he was in charge. He motioned for the medics to dispatch a few of their numbers to repair the titan.

"Repair its visor and clean its wounds, and don't mess with its restraints!"

The repair drones moved quickly under their orders, scattering around and hovering above the broken mechanoid, attempting to repair the alien machine with the limited tools at their disposal.

One group of Droids raced back to the camp where the fight had first started-the broken pieces of the titan's visor had been left there. It was dubious that its sight could be restored without it, seeing as the Droids had no knowledge of the inner workings of its eyes.

"It will take a while for them to retrieve your 'eyes'," the Droid shrilled. "The General has no such time," he finished, dropping the hint.

_Soundwave would have to do this while tied up and blind? He looked in the general's direction and started calculating everything, like how long the whole process of filtering the energon out of the other's system would take and how much circulating pressure the smaller one could handle. Soundwave would have to adjust all that carefully, or they would both end up dead. The general dying because of him, and him dying because his troops would more or less slaughter him right after. He was also calculating the size difference and came to the conclusion that he'd need extra amounts of the general's body liquid or his conduits would only drain him before anything beneficial could be done. An army of this size simply could not run without medical supplies for repair, thus he simply asked one of them to bring him what he needed, and he got it soon after, adding a brief explanation of what he'd do next so he wouldn't get another zap from the wires around him just for trying to do what he was supposed to. _

_Without any more tiring talk, Soundwave had to shift his inner mechanisms into a work area for the filtering, and the new shapes under his armor felt uncomfortable at best. After that, two conduits emerged from his chassis and attached, with help from the droids, to the tanks brought to him, they emptied literally everything, sucking all of the alien liquid inside him. The feeling it gave was torturous, and he had to do his best not to purge it out immediately. He needed to hurry. Quickly, with aid yet again from a few droids, Soundwave attached himself to their General. With a few carefully selected moves, the smaller wires made way to the main fluid lines as they were big enough to handle the necessary movements. _

_This was also the key to his secured escape from the snow and ice. One of the wires plugged itself to the nerves on the creature's spine, and other stopped to rest close to the heart. After all the preparations, Soundwave very slowly started the flow in him to circulate the liquids, and the moment the contaminated alien blood hit his filtering system it sucked the energon out back into his own veins. Getting a tiny bit of his own blood back helped to handle the pain the repairs were giving him. It wasn't the first time for him to have that done to him without any form of anesthetics. _

Grievous' body convulsed as the exchange took place. If the pain of the poisoning itself was intense, its forceful purging was even more so. As it left his system, he felt the immediate effects of withdrawal, his mechanical half reeling, crying out for its return. His eyes flashed open and he gasped for air, finding the task much easier now.

He awoke to find alien biotech attached to his chest and spine. Though he knew it to be the source of his recovery, he did not hold back a feeling of disgust. Frustrated by his own helplessness, by his need for the assistance of his titanic enemy, and this insidious violation, he mustered the strength to strike the one placed on his chest with an open palm. "Get off me!" he hissed.

He was revived, the alien blood purged from his system. His body was still damaged from the fuel's disintegrating effects, but those wounds, unlike the poison, could be treated.

He turned to the titan who, despite his contempt, had turned out to be his savior. He shot him a hateful stare, yellow-rounded, thin slits locking on to the titan's dead blue eyes. The titan was tied down, still blinded and helpless. He no longer need him, and he could easily terminate him right there and then. He eyed the three remaining, sheathed light sabers latched on to his armor.

_No_, he decided. It was all so unnecessary... moreover, he did not have the strength. He remained where he was, eyes locked on, simply waiting, and thinking.

_The slap from the general was an obvious sign of him getting better. Soundwave felt there was no more energon circulating in the alien liquid, and he decided it was time to show that the other one wasn't as helpless as one would think, and with that, the wires twisted inside the small one, inflicting instant pain. _

_"You cut me, you die." Soundwave said quietly while he was looking somewhere up to the sky. The cut off conduits would move with just plain reflex, randomly, causing huge damage and likely instant death. He was playing a gamble with his own life. He had no way of predicting if the crazy robot would actually cut him and kill them both just for his own satisfaction. This was the risk he took and as Laserbeak was flying above them still, Soundwave coded a message and sent it for him to deliver to wherever his kind still was. But that was to happen only if he didn't get out of this mess alive._

Grievous hissed in pain as the alien's circuits twisted in his spine. He realized that the titan had the power to destroy him from the inside out. He'd come this far... to be terminated by the thing like this was unacceptable. For all his spiteful pride, he managed to calm himself and stifle the reflex to slash the invading conduits entwine.

The titan would react to any perceived threat. The general wondered if he was even alone in his thoughts as he felt the invading alien biocircuitry hovering over his heart and spine. The thought sent a surge of anger and disgust through his mind, and Grievous struggled to think of a tactic that would free him from these atrocious restraints.

"Cut his bonds," he said finally, hushed to a shameful whisper, but his order was heard. The Droid soldiers exchanged looks, baffled at the thought that their general intended to free their invaluable prisoner. But they knew better than to question his orders. In an instant, the cables were discharged and unraveled, leaving the prisoner free.

_Soundwave felt the relief of the release but didn't move anywhere for a while, as he simply had to adjust his armor plates and circuitry to allow him better movement. The cold wasn't a threat currently, but it had still stiffened his back from lying down in the snow this whole time. It felt like a deja vu, only this time he had alien blood still inside him and his wires were invading another creature. He had to be careful not to do anything too hastily. He didn't plan on getting himself poisoned now in return just because he made a careless mistake and all the liquid in him would spread everywhere. No. That would be the end of everything. _

_Slow and stiff, Soundwave managed to get up without breaking anything inside both of them. His blank, blue gaze wandered around for a while to notice they were nowhere near the first meeting place. Even his tries to get an echo of his signal from the structures there were to no avail, since he didn't get anything back. The whole white field felt like it was absorbing everything, even the sounds of his footsteps sounded like they were muffled. That wasn't good. The blue mech hadn't considered how much energon he had lost during the struggle and now he started to feel the inevitable effects of it, even as he was already repaired as well as the army around him could do. _

_"Everyone else but us two, leave. Now. Out of sight," Soundwave focused to say soundly while appearing sharp and in control. Now he had the need to resolve this quick, before he'd be unable to transform and leave the planet. With a simple command, he ordered Laserbeak to confirm the troops' status to him constantly. There was no other way for him to confirm that, as his transmission signals weren't that effective anymore._

The Droids looked at one another, trying to figure out what to do, who to listen to- they were as mindless drones.

"Do it," Grievous ordered, thinking for them. They obeyed once the order came from the right source. By this time, the troops that had left to fetch the titan's broken visor had returned, and the medics that had gone with them had assembled it back into a single piece. Having heard the order, however, they, too, backed away. All the Droids had dispersed, leaving a neat, empty circle of barren snow around the two.

At this point Grievous was willing to give the titan anything it wanted. He was, in the truest sense of the phrase, at its mercy, and he desperately wanted to be free. The connection of its conduits to him was not only potentially lethal, but simply vile, and he made that perfectly clear with the repeated command. "Now, get _off_ me!" he rasped, controlling the urge to outright scream it.

_"Be quiet." Soundwave almost hissed, looking at the general with a cold expression, like he could look right through his target and not be blind at all. "I apologize that we did not meet under different circumstances. Our encounter might have been different." So many words hurt his untrained voice box... Was that disappointment he heard in his own, now a bit broken voice? Possibly, since he felt his expression was giving off the same feeling. Soundwave took a few steps back, until he was at his conduits limit lengthwise. Slowly he retracted them off from the others body, and just as the last wire's tip reached out, he let out all the excess alien blood flood out of them onto the snow while he retracted them back. In an instant they had disappeared back into the blue mech's chassis. _

Grievous felt a pang of fury at being given such an order from the other being. He was so used to being unchallengeable, unbeatable... he only took orders from a very select few- and he certainly did not hold the titan in high prestige as he did them.

But he managed to brush off that feeling. That anger... why bother? It was useful in the heat of battle, but it was nothing now. Free at last, he was surprised to find that murderous urge to destroy the titan was gone. He did not want to destroy it, nor to keep it around to research it, he simply wanted it gone, out of his sight for good.

It sickened him to his very core that those feelings might be called nothing so much as mercy. But in his mind, they were anything but. It was hatred; pure and simple. Hatred for the being and yet it was mixed with a pride-smashing gratefulness that it was the one who had saved his life.

The general snarled, lost in his thoughts. He was tired of being saved, of being the victim and relying on others to help him. His life had seen enough of that. But for all the shame he felt from those moments, his innate sense of loyalty forced his anger into submission.

"Go," he said. He motioned to the returning medic Droids, nodding. They understood, and they approached the titan, dropping a repaired visor at its feet. "Get out of here, and do not return," he told him, with a muted hint of hatred that belied something deeper.

_Soundwave picked up his fixed visor, checked it quickly and as he lifted it up and set upon his face, it clicked to its sockets, and a functional violet started to glow on its edges. A quick test showed it worked fine, and with a little pinch he was able to see again. He looked up and Laserbeak dove from the clear sky and transformed to place himself right into the blue mech's chest like it was a part of his body. With one last glance at the small robot that he didn't even know had a name, Soundwave memorized everything he saw, stored them all up somewhere safe inside his mind. The energy he had left was hopefully enough to find what he needed, and with that thought, he transformed to his jetmode and accelerated rapidly into the higher atmosphere. All that was left was a heat trail from his thruster as he disappeared from sight, beginning his long journey home._

The general watched as the lithe blue craft disappeared into the sky. He felt no emotion attached to its departure besides the satisfying sense of conclusion. It was over, it was gone, and he had no desire to ever see it again.

The Droids rushed back into the clearing, several surrounding Grievous, pestering him with concern, as was their annoyingly loyal nature. He rose up, staggering, still weak from all that had transpired.

He eyed a silver glint in the snow, approached it and picked it up. It was the saber he had lost in the clouds. A trophy from one of his former foes, he was glad to have reclaimed it. He placed it with the others latched on to his armor.

His flight suit was still functional, and he decided to return to base unescorted. His troops would follow on the ground below him. He jetted into the sky, silent and focused on simply returning to his quarters and giving himself the long rest he so desperately needed.

He flew, nothing but empty sky above him. He was happy, in that one single moment, simply to be alone.


End file.
